Word on the Street: Skeet Rd

Skeet Rd in South Taranaki is a major road linking the west coast with the inland State Highway 3.

It intersects the settlements of Te Roti, Matapu, Kapuni and Auroa, while passing close to the historic reserve and site of Riwha Tītokowaru’s former pā, Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu.

Its formation, like many of the roads in the district, is tied up with the controversial survey of the Waimate Plains 140 years ago.

The road was named after either surveyor Harry May Skeet – who was employed to survey the plains in 1878-1880 – or his father, Harry Lufkin Skeet.

Harry Skeet senior, at the time of the Waimate Plains survey, was in charge of the West Coast Royal Commission which was conducting the survey for the Crown.

Harry Skeet junior was one of a group of surveyors who, while attempting to survey either Skeet Rd or another road nearby in 1879, were gently but firmly removed by Tītokowaru’s followers and placed, along with their possessions, on the east side of the Waingongoro River.

This action, along with ploughing survey lines and erecting fences by the people of Parihaka, momentarily stalled the survey of the plains.

Many of those involved with this resistance were arrested and held without trial in the South Island.

In November 1881 the government invaded Parihaka. Many of its inhabitants were arrested or driven away and much of the village was demolished. Before this, however, the surveying of the Waimate Plains had resumed. Sections of land were listed for sale as early as February 1881.

Harry Skeet senior had been involved in surveying the Napier district and Nelson province in the 1860s.

In 1871 he was transferred to New Plymouth where he was in charge of surveying confiscated land in South Taranaki. Soon after this he became Chief Surveyor of the Land Purchase Department. He died a few years after the Waimate Plains survey, in 1882.

His son Harry had been trained by his father as a surveyor and joined the Lands and Survey Department in Taranaki in 1876.

He was responsible for many important surveys of the district including the first topographical survey of Taranaki Maunga and Te Papakura o Taranaki. He moved to Auckland and became the commissioner and chief surveyor. He died in 1943.

Contributed by the Taranaki Research Centre I Te Pua Wānanga o Taranaki at Puke Ariki. Find this and hundreds of other street histories on NPDC’s Puke Ariki website: https://terangiaoaonunui. pukeariki.com/story-collections/word-onthe-street